


Golden

by carxies



Series: I'm still only a human [10]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, M/M, Mentions of Blood, but also love and gentleness, if u ask me, kinda banana fish au but not really
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-01
Updated: 2019-03-01
Packaged: 2019-11-07 18:31:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17965838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/carxies/pseuds/carxies
Summary: It’s his own mistake and his own stupidity that got him a knife in his side, his own fault to be foolish and let his guard down, all because of a letter. A letter from Bokuto, who is a man of many words but not words like that, unadulterated adoration pressed in his messy handwriting and love Akaashi doesn’t deserve even on his best days.Akaashi is a fool, not exactly big news, who has fallen for a boy from the world Akaashi doesn’t understand. Akaashi is a fool, and he might not die due to a shallow stab wound in his stomach, but he surely will find his end because of the boy who has the sun itself trapped in his eyes.





	Golden

**Author's Note:**

> Hello!  
> It's been two years and I don't know if any of my old readers are still around, but I'm not actually dead. It's past midnight and after two years of nothing, I wrote this in one go, so I sure as hell won't go back and edit it, sorry for any mistakes. 
> 
> Thanks Vana for hyping me up all night, you are the real one!

The first thing Akaashi notices upon awaking from the old dream is the smell. The musty room, something that must be food, blood. His own, of course, dried and dark on his t-shirt, on his sweaty skin. He doesn’t need to look down to know about it, can feel it now that the almost overdose of pain killers is fading. His hands shine with cleanness when he brings them to his face to rub away the remains of the dreams, the most dangerous enemy to be found in the cheap apartment. Bokuto must have washed them while Akaashi was unconscious, perhaps so he doesn’t panic when the first thing he sees is red.

 

Akaashi has never had the heart to tell him he’s seen much worse things than that. He wishes for Bokuto to keep his innocent view of the world, pure and good. It’s naive, but if Akaashi didn’t have it in him to tell him until now, he doesn’t think he ever will. He doubts he will die out of a stab wound in his stomach, even if the wound gets infected. Still, Bokuto wastes precious time whispering that Akaashi can’t go like this, _won’t go like this_ , will live until he is at least seventy five. Akaashi has personally never aimed higher than twenty four.

 

He needs to stay awake from now on, just in case Bokuto tries to go against his word and take him to the hospital. He threatens and then begs, shouts and then cries, and yet Akaashi won’t nod his agreement, never will. Hospital is the easiest place to be found in, he has learned the hard way.

 

In Bokuto’s world, hospitals are where good people save other good people. It’s always black and white with him, good and bad, and Akaashi would find it irritating, if only he wasn’t a little jealous Bokuto managed to keep this vision to the age of twenty three.

 

Akaashi sits up. It hurts and it burns, the skin pulling, but he wants to see Bokuto, wants to know it’s really only his blood he can’t get out of his nose. It’s his own mistake and his own stupidity that got him a knife in his side, his own fault to be foolish and let his guard down, all because of a letter. A letter from Bokuto, who is a man of many words but not words like _that_ , unadulterated adoration pressed in his messy handwriting and love Akaashi doesn’t deserve even on his best days. Akaashi is a fool, not exactly big news, who has fallen for a boy from the world Akaashi doesn’t understand. Akaashi is a fool, and he might not die due to a shallow stab wound in his stomach, but he surely will find his end because of the boy who has the sun itself trapped in his eyes.

 

Akaashi finds Bokuto by the window, gaze and thoughts faraway, and the clock on the wall tells Akaashi it’s been about twenty hours since Bokuto carried him through the door. If he can make it to twenty two, he will live to see another day, a victory that people from Bokuto’s world don’t really think about. He wonders if Bokuto does now, after meeting Akaashi in a bar he never should have stepped into.

 

“Have you tried to cook?” Akaashi asks in the darkness, his voice hoarse and throat sore.

 

Bokuto whips his head towards him, the street lights playing on his cheek and hair falling down his forehead instead of being pushed back like normal. Beautiful, even in his misery, and Akaashi wants to set him free, away from the violence and blood, but deep down he knows Bokuto is staying out of his own will. That somehow makes it all so much harder, so much worse to bear.

 

“Maybe. Yeah. It doesn’t look the best, but it’s .. edible.”

 

Laughing hurts more than Akaashi has anticipated, and yet he can’t help it, doesn’t really want to. The pain must show in his expression though, Bokuto by his side in a second, prying Akaashi’s dirty shirt off his skin to check the injury. Akaashi stares at the ceiling instead. He has no desire to see the wound, to see the worry wearing Bokuto down. He counts twenty one cracks in the wall before Bokuto gets to his feet, storms off to bring whatever he cooked to Akaashi. Akaashi tries to follow him, but his legs feel funny and so he stays sitting down rather than concerning Bokuto further.

 

A soup. Bokuto has made him some sort of a soup, unsalted and little cold by now. Akaashi eats the whole bowl of it anyway, refuses to be fed by Bokuto but lets him brush Akaashi’s greasy hair from his forehead. They need to talk about the letter, Akaashi thinks, about those last twenty words especially. He wants to tell Bokuto it’s naive to believe in future together, straight up stupid to think Akaashi will ever be able to escape from this, but he also craves to have that hope himself, so he settles for holding Bokuto’s hand once he sits by his side. He strokes the warm skin of Bokuto’s wrist with the tip of his finger, desperate to keep the memory of it vivid.

 

“Thank you,” he forces himself to say, the least he can do.

 

“Always,” Bokuto replies with an ease Akaashi envies, like talking to Akaashi is the simplest thing to do, like he doesn’t struggle and turn the words around in his head for ages before allowing them to leave his mouth. He looks at Akaashi as if Akaashi hung the stars on the sky for him, and Akaashi knows he would if he could. He hates himself for it, a little bit. He hates himself for letting Bokuto love him, a whole lot. “When you are all healed, I will take you for something better. Where do you wanna go?”

 

Akaashi chuckles, knows this will never happen, humours Bokuto anyway. “Somewhere fancy, where we can laugh at the names of the food.”

“And at the people there.”

“Mainly the people there, yes,” Akaashi snorts and he aches, thanks to a stab wound, thanks to a broken heart.

 

Bokuto notices his pain; of course he does, and insists on changing the bandages. Under the yellow light, his skin seems to glow, all warm honey. He has the clumsiest hands Akaashi has ever seen, but their movements are careful and gentle on Akaashi’s skin, always around Akaashi in general. He closes his eyes, just for a second, and when he opens them, the clock shows nineteen minutes left till the midnight. Akaashi wonders what it is about this room that makes the time run so fast yet so slow.

 

The dirty bandages are nowhere to be found and Bokuto sits on the floor by Akaashi’s feet, back leaning against the bed. Akaashi watches him, can’t come up with anything better to do, anything appropriate to say. He thinks he should write a letter to Bokuto, a proper reply, but he knows he would end up with eighteen words or eighteen pages, doubts Bokuto would want to read either when Akaashi is right there, for now.

 

He moves to lie down, nods at Bokuto when he looks alarmed, and doesn’t fight the heaviness of his eyelids anymore. He thinks he hears Bokuto talking to him, but that could be another dream already.

 

He is shaken from the sleep some time later. Bokuto has an apology on his tongue, and Akaashi forces him to swallow it down with a single stern look. In the daylight, the darkness under his eyes is more prominent and it should be Akaashi apologizing, for being the cause of it.

 

“You just .. It looked as if you were in lots of pain,” Bokuto says as he hands Akaashi a glass of water.

 

“I am in pain,” Akaashi replies before he can think, like an idiot he is. He takes more painkillers in the tense silence he created and checks the clock. A brand new day he gets to see, seventeen hours left of it. “Sorry, that was not what I meant.”

 

“What else could you possibly mean,” Bokuto huffs and walks towards the door, only to turn back around and head for the window. Trapped between the walls of the room.

 

“You can always leave,” Akaashi whispers and it’s the wrong thing to say, he knows, says it anyway. He sets the glass down and grabs his shirt, peels it off his damp skin, dried blood. The smell of the sweat is the strongest one now, so he struggles to his feet, forces his legs to carry him to the bathroom.

 

Bokuto follows him without a word, lips pressed in tight line as he helps Akaashi to rip the damn shirt off his body. Bokuto refuses to look at the wound and that’s why Akaashi stares it instead, sixteen ugly stitches he sewed himself, back when his senses still worked they way they are supposed to.

 

“Help me?” he asks, all pride forgotten.

 

“Yeah,” Bokuto nods and wets a clean towel, presses it to Akaashi’s stomach and waits for consent before moving it over his skin in tiny circles.

 

Akaashi tries and fails to keep his eyes off Bokuto, an impossible task even without his mind clouded like this. He starts to believe that the time passes the same; he just became much slower, disoriented and sluggish. He starts to believe that it might be the combination of the stab wound and a pretty boy that will be the end of him. Akaashi’s legs are too weak to hold him the entire time; the cleaning process must take more than fifteen minutes with how careful Bokuto is being.

 

Akaashi hopes leaning against the wall doesn’t drag Bokuto’s attention to his wobbly knees, grips the sink to hide at least his shaking hands. He believes he should feel more pain than he does, the pain killers cannot work that fast. He gazes at Bokuto and doesn’t have enough strength in his body to mask the longing with something neutral, something indifferent. Bokuto notices that.

 

“Kiss me,” Akaashi says before Bokuto can question him, the only thing that can convince him Bokuto isn’t just another dream while he’s unconscious.

 

Bokuto hesitates, breaks Akaashi’s heart, but Akaashi must radiate enough desperation that he goes against whatever rational thoughts he had and leans in, closes the distance between them. Akaashi is aware that the kiss can’t be nice for Bokuto, but it’s beyond perfect for Akaashi as he wraps his arms around Bokuto’s neck, doesn’t care how the skin of his stomach pulls with it. He kisses Bokuto with all the life he has left in him, and when he cannot push enough air in his lungs, he simply lies his head on Bokuto’s shoulder, kisses whatever spot he can reach until the world becomes black. He is sure Bokuto _is_ calling for him this time.

 

Akaashi has no clue if he was out for minutes or whole fourteen days when he manages to open his eyes again. He is back in the bed, Bokuto must have carried his limb body. He is sitting by the wall, head fallen to the side, dreaming of his perfect world, probably. Akaashi doesn’t wake him up, just steals his phone to check the date. Thirteenth March. He only slept for a couple of hours then, what a relief.

 

Still, his whole being aches so much he belittles his goal, divides the day in half. Staying alive for the next twelve hours seems enough now. Maybe even eleven, but some of Bokuto’s naive hopefulness must have rubbed off on Akaashi. He closes his eyes and hopes to open them again, sometime soon, to at least see Bokuto once more.

 

He hears his voice. Tries to listen to the words, but they all slur together and leave nothing but buzz in Akaashi’s head. There’s a pressure against his palm, most likely Bokuto’s own hand. Not holding, just pressing them together, and Akaashi counts Bokuto’s fingers and then his own just to be absolutely positive he’s right, until he counts to ten.

 

“Are you awake?” Bokuto asks and Akaashi finally understands him, clear and always a little too loud. “Stay with me, yeah?”

 

Akaashi nods, pulls his hand away to hook his pinkie around Bokuto’s, a silent promise he has yet to say out loud. He will. Has to, if he wants Bokuto to know this is just as real to him, even if their time has been limited from the very beginning. What a shame. They could have met nine years ago, long before Akaashi fell through the rabbit hole into a world he can’t leave now, and it would all be different. Bokuto wouldn’t have to cry when he believes Akaashi can’t hear him and Akaashi wouldn’t have to pretend his heart isn’t bleeding as well.

 

He searches for the clock, sees he survived another almost eight hours, and smiles at Bokuto, the softness of it reserved only for him.

 

People always said Akaashi would be the death of Bokuto. Akaashi couldn’t be happier to know it’s been the other way around the entire time. He will go with the feel of Bokuto’s lips on his own while Bokuto will get to return home, return to the things he loved before he loved Akaashi. He holds onto the thought, the calmness settling deep in his bones. Seven years from now, Bokuto will be turning thirty; he will start a new decade clean, without the stain of Akaashi and his world. It’s all Akaashi can wish for.

 

Drinking the water Bokuto gets him hurts, but it’s nothing new. He should have set his goal to six hours instead, but now it’s too late  - he will push to finish the remaining five, to see the sunset and how pretty Bokuto’s eyes are when he admires it each day. He refuses the painkillers, there are only four of them left anyway and he doesn’t want to be drugged anymore, wants to feel everything while he can.

 

Bokuto doesn’t force him, too sad and too tired to argue. Akaashi sits up with sheer willpower, just to be able to see him better, take in all there is to him. The tiny scar on his right cheek, from a cat his family owned when he was a little kid. It’s charming, kind of. It’s stupid that Akaashi thinks that about a thin line engraved into otherwise a perfect skin. It has a lot to do with the three words on his mind, he knows. He’s still hesitant to say them, even now, scared Bokuto will hear them as a goodbye instead of what they truly are. A thank you, perhaps.

 

Bokuto deserves more than three words and Akaashi _should_ _have_ written the damn letter, _should_ _have_ taken the one from Bokuto somewhere safe instead of reading it in the open like a fool. He should have known Bokuto wouldn’t get on the plane like he promised Akaashi, would run back and find Akaashi bleeding out in his apartment instead.

 

He wipes his eyes once he starts seeing blurry, realises it’s tears and laughs, because he hasn’t cried in years. Bokuto smiles at him right before he breaks down in his own sobs, his chest shaking with the strength they force their way out. Akaashi doesn’t really want to know for how long he’s been fighting to keep them in, knows it must have been way longer than he’s willing to admit. He reaches out and Bokuto wastes no time, intertwines their fingers together, squeezes them for good measure. Reminds Akaashi their souls are tangled together for eternity, the two of them will exist even after all of this, and still –

 

“I – I don’t want to die,” Akaashi sobs out, his voice raw. “Not now.”

 

The rest is a blur, colours and lights, darkness and shadows. Bokuto’s voice in the back of his head the whole time, the only person who cared enough to care for Akaashi, and Akaashi might be used to feeling a million things at once, but right then it’s only one emotion, stronger than anything that tries to pull him away.

 

“I love you,” he manages to whisper outside the hospital, Bokuto’s arms around him warm and safe. The sun is rising behind the horizon, bright orange bringing out the colour of Bokuto’s eyes, warm gold, and Akaashi smiles, can’t help but smile despite it all.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Hello again, sorry about all that I guess??? :D
> 
> All I wanted to say is that yes, I was silent for two years, but HQ is still the only fandom for me.  
> I recently started working on my original story ( I actually wrote a simplified and short version of it as Kyouhaba fic 'Hide me well' here) and that's where I want to put my energy and time,  
> so I can't really say I'm back. This lil thingy was an abstract idea in my mind for over a year, then I watched Banana fish which gave me the right feel and tonight I broke and wrote this. Hope it's okay compared to the rest of my babies. 
> 
> (Hope u noticed the countdown in there, that was tough to include)
> 
> Thank you for reading! Find me at tumblr @worldwidechaotic / @carxies


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